


Laundry

by etherati



Category: Watchmen
Genre: Dan's List of Kinks, M/M, Masturbation, One Shot, Pre-Roche, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherati/pseuds/etherati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan's staircase is too quiet; he doesn't MEAN to sneak up on people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laundry

*

If only he hadn’t oiled the damn hinges.

If he hadn’t oiled the hinges, Dan thinks, standing at the bottom of the basement stairs – if he hadn’t gone through this spring and replaced every creaking step, he would have made noise, telegraphed his intent to come downstairs to throw in a load of laundry, and Rorschach would have… and really, what kind of person crashes overnight for the first time, after months and months of offering and wheedling and wearing down, and then hunches over themselves in the half-dark of the basement, cot sheets balled into their fist and tugged round their waist, and-

Which begs the companion question: What kind of man stumbles across his crime-fighting partner jerking himself furiously raw, and just stands there and _watches_?

The same kind that gets off on running around dressed as an owl, apparently.

Rorschach – and it really is _him_, something fleshy and blood-fueled that looks deceptively like an ordinary person lurking under all the leather and cotton and latex – bucks sharply up into his hand, and Dan can see the way the curve of his spine, knobby and fluid, reshapes itself around the motion. Rorschach is down to just his undershirt, and under it, planes of muscle shift and slide and bunch up. His shoulders hitch up and shake; he’s trembling, or possibly crying, but his hand doesn’t falter, long-fingered and spattered with freckles. And why, Dan wonders, is he paying attention to details like that when those fingers are wringing his cock from its root to its thick, dark head with violent and painful desperation and God, this is real, not some late-night fantasy at the end of a long patrol to let him blow off some steam and jitters and get to sleep. He’s actually standing here watching this.

Watching the way the waistband of Rorschach’s open slacks slides down under his ass when he shudders backwards on the cot, sheets twisting beneath him. Watching the way his breath seems to catch in his chest, like a wild and dangerous creature he dares not let loose. Watching the way he bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood rather than let out the deep groan that Dan can feel building, can feel rising up his own throat, and he presses the palm of his hand over his mouth to catch it there, to keep it inside.

Control, Dan thinks. Don’t make a sound, or this will all be over in an instant and you’ll never see the line of his jaw pulled tight like this, the thin lips pursed open over clenched teeth, the high lines of his cheekbones flushed in abandon, ever again. Shouldn’t even be seeing them now, a tiny voice reminds him because of course he already knows, and isn’t this right up there on the list of completely unforgivable invasions of privacy?

Somehow, shamefully, the guilt won’t come; just an insistent and burgeoning arousal that he’s controlling, he really is – so far. So far.

But when Rorschach darts his tongue out to lick away the blood, catches it between his teeth and bears down, it twists something hot and stinging in his gut, control slipping – and it’s all Dan can do to not grind against the unforgivingly sharp lattice of the basket or palm himself through his slacks or just pass out where he stands, because the bloodrush away from his brain leaves him blinking through a haze of stars and he can’t remember being this turned on in ages, just ages. Lifetimes ago, it feels like. Forever.

Rorschach is losing his fight to stay silent, tiny gasps escaping through his teeth, sharp and brittle and undone by his own hands; and maybe that’s the only way he’d ever have it but Dan still imagines that the hand is his own, sliding over soft, hot skin, teasing each of those gasps out from under the lock and key of his partner’s iron will. Rorschach’s hips shudder against his clenched fist, driving up into it, faster, more violently – and the motion he makes with his hand, his whole arm, is the same motion he’d used earlier that night to uppercut the Top-Knot that had pulled a knife on Dan, is the same motion he’d used to help Dan up from the floor of the alley, dizzy from the adrenaline rush of having a blade pressed to his throat and feeling it start to bite in. His fingers are slick and shining with precome in the dim light and his spine rolls back into a curve that is nothing but poetry and he groans, deep and broken and _loud,_ too loud, in the instant before he gets that wadded-up sheet up to his mouth to muffle it but _it isn’t a sheet, oh God, oh fuck,_

And resolve and control are useless, meaningless ideas – words, just words, and Dan reaches down to rock the heel of his hand over his tented erection, digging in under the head, the rough friction of the zipper helping more than hurting and he comes against the fabric almost before Rorschach does because that isn’t a sheet Rorschach is holding to his face, breathing in as though it were life itself, weeping hollow tears into. It’s a shirt, it’s one of Dan’s shirts, the one he’d worn on patrol tonight under the uniform, stripped off in the basement to be rid of its clinging sweat-stink, its musk of violence and fear and it must _smell like him_ and-

From the cot, a broken sob; A hand rubbing ineffectually at sheets as though to clean itself. Rorschach collapses onto his side, half-masked face falling out of view, still clutching the shirt to his skin, and is utterly still.

Dan breathes for a long moment, one hand still holding the basket propped against his hip, the plastic rim trembling lightly in the near darkness. He turns, climbs the stairs carefully, not making a sound.

In the morning, he will realize he still has no clean clothes, will reluctantly dress in week-old holdovers, self-conscious for the faint smell of faded sweat and soap that he knows hangs on them. Rorschach will put his mask up to drink a cup of coffee, too sweetened by far, and his lips will cling to the edge of the mug, jawline working to swallow – and Dan will pretend to not know how those sharp-lined features had looked drawn back and flooded with redness and murmuring appeals and apologies and incoherent pleas into the dark.

*


End file.
